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Barbra Streisand (born April 24, 1942) is an iconic Jewish American singer,
theatre and film actress, composer, and film producer and director.
She has won multiple Academy Awards, Grammy Awards, and Emmy Awards.
Including a special Tony Award, she is one of the few people to have won all
four awards.
She is also a liberal Democratic Party political activist.
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Early years
She was born Barbara Joan Streisand in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York then
moved to another area in Brooklyn. Her father died when she was only 15
months old, and she had a lifelong turbulent relationship with her
stepfather. Her well-intentioned mother did not encourage her daughter to
pursue a show business career, opining that Barbara was not attractive
enough. This criticism, many speculate, led to a lifelong insecurity about
her appearance, despite enormous success in every facet of show business.
She was educated at Beis Yakov School and then famed Erasmus Hall High
School, where she graduated fourth in her class, and overlapped by a year
future collaborator Neil Diamond.
Early singing, theater, and television career
Following a music competition, she became a nightclub singer in her teens.
She originally had wanted to be an actress, and appeared in a number of Off-Off-Broadway
productions, including one with then-aspiring actress Joan Rivers, but when
her boyfriend Barry Dennen helped her shape a club act — first performed in
a gay bar in Manhattan's Greenwich Village in 1960 — she became a big
success as a singer. It was also at this time that she shortened her first
name to Barbra to make it more distinctive.
She signed her first recording contract with Columbia Records in 1962 and
her first album, The Barbra Streisand Album, won two Grammy Awards in 1963.
Her recording success continued, and at one time, Streisand's first three
albums appeared simultaneously on Billboard's pop albums Top Ten - an
amazing feat considering it was at a time when rock and roll and The Beatles
dominated the charts.
Starting in 1962 Streisand also appeared on Broadway, first in a small but
star-making role in the musical I Can Get It for You Wholesale (1962) when
she was still a teenager, and then as lead role Fanny Brice in Jule Styne's
and Bob Merrill's Funny Girl (1964). After some notable television guest
appearances, Streisand built on her success with a number of television
specials for CBS. The first special, My Name Is Barbra (1965), is considered
by many to be the best, and has been praised by critics and fans.
Singing career
Barbra Streisand has recorded more than 60 albums, almost all with the
Columbia Records label. Her early works in the 1960s (her debut, The Second
Barbra Streisand Album, The Third Album, My Name Is Barbra, etc.) are
considered classic renditions of theatre and nightclub standards, including
her famously ironic version of "Happy Days Are Here Again". Beginning with
My Name Is Barbra her albums were often medley-filled keepsakes of her
television specials.
Starting in 1967, Streisand tackled contemporary songwriters; she foundered
on attempts to tackle rock, but finally found success with the pop and
ballad-oriented, Richard Perry-produced Stoney End in 1971, whose Laura Nyro-written
title track was a big hit.
Streisand's 1980 album, Guilty featured the songwriting, production and
vocal talents of Barry Gibb and was one of her biggest successesDuring the
1970s she was also highly prominent in the pop charts, with number-one
records like "The Way We Were", "Evergreen", "No More Tears (Enough Is
Enough)" and "Woman In Love"; some of these came from soundtrack records to
her films.
When the 1970s ended, Streisand was named the most successful female singer
in the US, with only Elvis Presley and The Beatles having sold more albums.
In 1982, music critic Stephen Holden wrote that Streisand was "The most
influential mainstream American pop singer since Frank Sinatra."
Streisand returned to her musical theater roots with 1985's The Broadway
Album. This was an unexpected commercial success, and featured some songs
reworked by Stephen Sondheim especially for this recording.
In 1991 she released a four-disc box set, entitled Just for the Record. A
separate disc, entitled "Highlights from Just for the Record" featured two
dozen tracks, including live material, greatest hits, and rarities, from her
early recordings up to 1991. Around 1992, however, success was not in
Streisand's favor. She was losing money, and sought advice from former
boyfriend Dennen. He suggested she perform in a series of live concerts, not
only for financial reasons, but to overcome her chronic stage fright, as
well. The tour was one of the biggest all-media merchandise parlays in
history. Dennen later wrote a book called My Life with Barbra.
On New Year's Eve 1999 she returned to the concert stage, scoring another
personal triumph for giving the highest grossing single concert in Las Vegas
history to date. She later toured Australia with that programme, called
Timeless, which was also released on a two-disc album by Columbia. At the
end of the last millennium, she still was the number-one female singer in
the United States, with number-one albums in each decade since she had
started out.
Her most recent albums have been Christmas Memories (2001), a collection of
somber holiday songs, and The Movie Album (2003), featuring famous movie
themes and backed by a large symphony orchestra. Guilty Pleasures (called
Guilty Too in the UK), a collaboration with Barry Gibb and a sequel album to
their previous Guilty, was released worldwide in 2005.
Film career
Her first film was a reprise of her Broadway hit, Funny Girl (1968), for
which she won the 1968 Academy Award for Best Actress, sharing it with
Katharine Hepburn (The Lion in Winter), the first time there was a tie in
this Oscar category. Her next two movies were also based on musicals, Jerry
Herman's Hello, Dolly! (1969) and Alan Jay Lerner's and Burton Lane's On a
Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970), while her fourth film was based on the
Broadway play The Owl and the Pussycat (1970).
She also starred in the original screwball comedies What's Up, Doc? (1972),
with Ryan O'Neal, and For Pete's Sake (1974), and the hugely successful
drama The Way We Were with Robert Redford. Her second Academy Award was as
composer of the song "Evergreen", from A Star Is Born (1976) and was the
first time a woman had received this award (the film itself, though, was
widely criticized as a vanity project).
Along with Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier, Barbra Streisand formed First
Artists Production Company in 1970 so these actors could secure properties
and develop movie projects for themselves. Streisand's initial outing with
First Artists, while not a huge commercial success, was the personal Up the
Sandbox (1972).
In 1970, she had a topless scene in The Owl and the Pussycat. She quickly
regretted the move and bought up all prints of the film, deleting the scene.
When High Society magazine later published the original photos of her bare
breasts, Streisand sued them.
She has produced a number of her own films, setting up Barwood Films in
1972. For Yentl (1983) she was producer, director, writer, and star, an
experience she largely repeated for The Prince of Tides (1991). Steven
Spielberg called Yentl a masterpiece, and many critics praised both it and
Prince of Tides. There was controversy when Yentl received five Academy
Award nominations but none for the major categories of Best Picture, Actress,
or Director. There was more controversy when Prince of Tides received even
more nominations, including Best Picture, but Streisand still was snubbed
for Best Director. [1] Some claimed that her well-known uncompromising,
tough behavior was to blame for the slight, while others felt that Hollywood
was punishing her for being a woman, and if a man behaved the same way, he
would have been given recognition.
In 2004, Streisand reappeared on the big screen in the comedy Meet the
Fockers, playing opposite Dustin Hoffman, Ben Stiller, and Robert DeNiro
among others. The film was very successful commercially and Streisand
garnered positive reviews.
Persona
She was married to Elliott Gould from 1963 to 1971, with whom she had her
only child, son Jason Gould (who later appeared as her character's son in
The Prince of Tides). She briefly dated Canadian Prime Minister Pierre
Trudeau in the early 1970s, had long-term relationships with hairdresser-turned-producer
Jon Peters and tennis player Andre Agassi, and later married actor James
Brolin in 1998.
Streisand is known for her outspoken liberal political views, and is a
staunch supporter of the Democratic Party. Prior to the 2004 US presidential
election, Streisand promised that she would move out of the country if
George W. Bush was elected to a second term. Despite thousands of pleading
letters from citizens critical of her political views, Barbra Streisand
continues to live in the US. She attracted unfavorable attention for a 2003
lawsuit she filed against a photographer whose aerial photos documenting the
California coast included an image of her Malibu estate. Streisand lost the
suit and was ordered to pay the photographer's attorneys' fees.[2]
Streisand's strong, larger-than-life personality has made her an icon to
some members of her fan base. This was affectionately satirized by Mike
Myers's "Linda Richman" series of sketches on Saturday Night Live, during
one of which Streisand herself made a surprise appearance with Madonna and
Roseanne.
Streisand is considered a favorite icon some in the gay community - some of
her earliest performances were at gay clubs, her son Jason is openly gay,
and in 1992 she campaigned against Colorado's Amendment 2, which prevented
cities or state government from extending equal civil rights protections to
homosexuals.
On the other hand, Streisand's sometimes over-the-top performance style,
vanity (she insists on being filmed from one side only), and political
involvement often make her a target of hostility as well. For instance, she
was repeatedly satirized on the South Park animated series such as in the
episode called "Mecha-Streisand", in which she tried to take over the world
by transforming herself into a giant robot; in other episodes, characters
use her name as a curse word.
Awards
Over the years, Steisand has been the recipient of an award in every medium
she has worked in. This "grand slam" as an honoree has never been duplicated
by any other performer in history. Among her many awards are two Oscars, six
Emmys, eleven Golden Globes, ten Grammys, a Tony award, two cable ace awards,
the American Film Insitute's Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as a number
of other awards.
In 1995 she received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. As of 2005, her US
album sales rank her as the top-selling female recording artist in the US. |
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